Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program at CMU Expands with Support from $1.6 Million NASA Grant

CLEVELAND–As the Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET) of Case
Western Reserve University begins its 26th annual trip onto the ice fields
of Antarctica, new support from the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) has allowed ANSMET to create a new reconnaissance
team to augment the existing National Science Foundation (NSF) supported
team. These teams will search the blustery, frozen landscape for pieces of
Mars and other solar system bodies during six weeks of exploration.
Support for CWRU’s new ANSMET team and its 2002 field season came from a
three-year, $1.6 million grant from NASA. “NASA’s support of the ANSMET
program allows this valuable planetary science program to grow in new and
promising ways,” says Ralph Harvey, CWRU planetary geologist and ANSMET
director.

The new ANSMET team will travel light and be well-supported by small
aircraft, allowing them to explore many poorly known and hard-to-reach
sites in a single season while also recovering significant numbers of new
meteorites.

This year, the reconnaissance team will explore ice fields in the region
around the Pecora Escarpment, roughly 200 kilometers from the U. S.
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

The larger NSF-supported team will focus on systematic recovery of
meteorite specimens from ice fields where high concentrations have been
previously discovered. This year they will search near the Goodwin Nunataks
and MacAlpine Hills, near the head of the Beardmore Glacier in East Antarctica.
The prospect that enables the expedition scientists to brave Antarctica’s
cold and windy conditions is the potential of collecting specimens that
originated from Mars or other exotic solar system bodies, explains Harvey.
Of the more than 11,800 meteorites recovered by ANSMET over the past
quarter century, about 5 percent are unusual enough to be of high
scientific interest, and about one out of 1,000 is from the moon or Mars.
The five Martian meteorites found by ANSMET have been central to NASA’s
advancing efforts to explore Mars, says Harvey.

ALH77005, found in the Allan Hills region by ANSMET in 1977, was the first
Martian meteorite found in Antarctica and the seventh specimen known
worldwide. It generated enormous scientific interest and brought this
enigmatic group of specimens into the forefront of planetary research.
EETA79001, recovered two years later at the Elephant Moraine ice field,
provided the dramatic conclusive link between these meteorites and Mars.
LEW88516 was found in 1988 at the Lewis Cliff Ice Tongue and has been the
focus of many studies including research on the abundance of water on Mars.
ALH84001, found by ANSMET in 1984 near the Allan Hills, is perhaps the most
famous of all the Martian meteorites, and the focus of intense debate
concerning possible signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. The last
Martian meteorite found by ANSMET was QUE94201, a uniquely young but
primitive volcanic rock found in the Queen Alexandra Range in 1994.
Curated by the Johnson Space Center and the Smithsonian Institution, ANSMET
samples are available to researchers around the world for planetary geology
research.

“As NASA prepares to embark upon a decade of intensified in situ
exploration of Mars and on the way to an era in which sample return will be
a key facet of our program, the collection of priceless meteorite samples
from Antarctica is a vital step,” says James Garvin, NASA lead scientist
for Mars Exploration.

“By supporting a dual-sampling team approach this year, NASA hopes to
return a diversified set of meteorite samples and to increase the
possibility of discovering additional meteorites from Mars,” adds Garvin.
Participating in ANSMET’s meteorite recovery efforts this year are Carlton
Allen, Dean Eppler and Catherine Coleman from NASA’s Johnson Space Center;
Andy Caldwell, a high school teacher from Douglas County High School in
Castle Rock, Colo.; Daniel Glavin, Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry in
Mainz, Germany; Diane DiMassa, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth;
Dante Lauretta, University of Arizona; Scott Messenger, Washington
University in St. Louis; and Linda Welzenbach, Smithsonian Institution.
Nancy Chabot of CWRU’s department of geological sciences is a veteran of
two previous ANSMET expeditions and will be the lead scientist for this
year’s fieldwork, while James Pierce of Colorado and John Schutt of
Washington State will be the expedition mountaineers.

For information, contact Ralph Harvey at 216-368-0198 or by e-mail at
rph@po.cwru.edu. Further information on ANSMET activities, including maps,
images and daily updates from the field can be found at the ANSMET Web site
at http://www.cwru.edu/affil/ansmet.

The ANSMET Web site also includes links to associated sites such as
Antarctic meteorite facilities at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.